Grrr.....

With Watagases chased out of Parthia, it was time for Bobarsaces to pay a little visit to the former's erstwhile supporters in Hatra, and effect a little regime change. Wolgash, the leader of the contingent that had changed sides in the second battle seemed like a good candidate for the new headman there.

Hatra is a little rundown these days

The terrain was dominated by two large sand dunes, one in the middle of my deployment area, and another in Wayne's area to the left of it. There was also a rocky further to the right in Waynes's area. All told there was great terrain for Hatra's archers to defend, and lots of scope for camel led ambushes (though as it transpired, neither of has brought any cataphract camels this time). With no prospect of being able to assault the terrain fortress, and not really wanted to fight massed bows head on anyway, I needed to lure Wayne out of his hidey hole, so I planned to attack down the left with my main cataphract force, and mask the dunes in Waynes area with my own Hatreme contingent. The two other commands would be off table, one as a delayed command, and one as a flank march on the right, which I hoped might get into the rear of any command attempting to swing round onto my right flank. Starting with two commands missing can be dangerous, but the dunes would protect me, and I hoped that last weeks ambushes would make Wayne caustious about advancing past the apparently empty area of the table.

Mine is the tiny command on the left.

Wayne deployed more or less as I had expected, with a huge command of bows on the rocky hill, and the open area to the left of it, a mixed force around the dunes, and a command of light horse on the right. On the left he had a bunch of renegade Parthians led by some minon of Watagases whose name wasn't important enough for the great king to remember (SMOWWNWIEFTGKTR).

To many bows to handle

SMOWWNWIEFTGKTR and crew

As defender, Wayne took first bound, and started to shake his forces out, while waiting to see what else turned up before commuting. On my first turn, two bad things happened. Firstly, it appeared that Wolgash wasn't as loyal as hoped, so my Hatremes were unreliable, and secondly my flank march rolled a six, and so arrived way too early. I started to move my cataphracts out to the left to attack the renegade Parthians led by some minion of Watagases whose name is too hard to pronounce.

My Hatremes were less than helpful

On the next turn, Wayne started to line up against my Hatremes (while being careful) not to activate them, and my flank march steamed onto the table, and advanced rapidly with a good pip roll.

Flank march riding hard

Wayne's general, who  appeared to be answering a call of nature, was surprised by the arrival of the flank march

The flank marching command had great pips all game, and seemed to have a great chance of sweeping away the smaller Hatreme light horse command before their bow command could assist. However, all the hard riding had clearly tired them out, as their combat dice were pathetic, and after a few turns of engagement, their general rolled a one at a bad time, and the command turned tail and fled. On the plus side, they had at least stopped two of Wayne's commands from interfering in the rest of the battle.

The main battle was played out on the left, where I maneuvered my cataphracts to attack the renegade Parthians, while the latter  lined up ready to charge my Hatreme contingent, while being careful not to get close enough to activate them. My delayed command turned up fairly promptly and I fed them in behind the inert allies. Unfortately, having arrived on time, they proceeded to roll poorly for pips and took a long time to actually get engaged.

Jockeying for position on the left. Delayed command coming up behind.

There was some minor skirmishing, then unfortunately Wayne made a boo boo, and in has haste to chase off some light horse, moved close enough to my Hatremes to activate them. I say unfortunately, because if he hadn't, at the end of the bound they'd have changed sides when my flank marching command broke, and it would have been game over, and we could have had an early night.

Anyway after an initial surge of enthusiasm  ( 4 pips no less), the Hatremes reverted to their previous state of disinterest, struggling to get enough pips to apply pressure, and not doing well enough in combat to kill much. Wayne charged into their bows with is cataphracts and was successful on both counts, killing four bows and making a big hole. Eventually I filled it with some cataphracts from the delayed command, but he killed one of them too. Further left, there was a lot of fighting around the end of the cataphract lines, but I struggled to get pips to launch a full on charge into his light horse. Eventually Wayne bought his cataphract C in C over from the other side of the dunes, and charged him so more of my Hatreme bows, killing another pair and psiloi support behind. To add insult to injury, the sacrificial horse archer he'd sent in to stop his C in C being outflanked, also rolled well, killing another two bow elements and the psiloi behind. This broke the Hatreme command, and with it my army.

Big hole on the right made by C in C proved decisive

Now those of you who are actually familiar with the rules of DBMM will realize that we played this wrongly, and the horse archer should only have killed the front rank of bows, and that neither these, nor the C in C should have killed the psiloi behind. Doing this correctly would have left the command demoralized, but not broken, and with most of Wayne's line having more holes than a swiss cheese, I'd have had an excellent change to break his Parthian command, though whether I'd have done enough to the Hatreme's  C in C's command to break it, is dubious.

All in all a bit of a frustrating result, as I had a good plan to deal with a difficult terrain set-up, predicted my opponents set-up correctly, concentrated superior forces against lesser ones, didn't feel that I made any significant mistakes, and still ended up losing. I guess I've been on a bit of a roll the last three games, and the dice gods decided it was time to put me in my place. Maybe now I should offer up some sacrifices.